The Calgary Canucks rode into Fort McMurray the night before the game and stole a win from under the MOB’s nose thanks to their goaltender Logan Drackett who turned aside 45 shots in a 3-0 shutout win.
Calgary controlled play in the first and third periods, but the Oil Barons dominated the second outshooting the Canucks 23-8 in the middle frame. Total shots on goal were 45-35 in favour of the home squad.
“This was ugly, we understand that we’ve got a young group we prepped them yesterday after the game. I don’t know if it was one of those things where were just so relieved to get the first win that we just laid an egg tonight,” said Oil Barons Head Coach Tom Keca. “It was the first time that I would say our leaders weren’t very good at all, we had no offence, no sustained pressure.”
Allan MacPherson opened the scoring at the 16:04 mark on the power-play in the first period as Cody Hodgson served a tripping minor. The MOB were outshot 15-11 and looked sluggish in the first.
“Here at home this year we’ve been fairly good, but tonight was not acceptable. Right now we’ve got too many part timers, we’ve got too many guys that are selectively choosing when they’re following the system and when they’re selectively just going to do what they want.”
Early the third Tanner Miller had a chance to clear the puck deep in his defensive zone, but the 17-year-old rookie defender turned it over and that led to Andrew Marshall’s goal just 17 second in giving Calgary a 2-0 lead. Marshall was left all alone in front of Ravi Dattani, not an Oil Baron within sight.
“It’s frustrating when we’ve got an opportunity to get pucks out and we say get pucks out hard and we don’t,” said Keca. “What ends up happening is your forwards end up thinking that the puck is getting out and they start breaking then all of a sudden they’ve got to stop on a dime and we give up odd-man rushes.”
Calgary went one for four on the power-play, the MOB unable to score on two opportunities. The Oil Barons head a on a three game road swing starting with Okotoks Thursday, Drumheller on Friday, and Olds on Saturday.
“You’ve got three different styles of clubs which is going to be interesting again it’s in the south so we don’t have a ton of tape on the,” said Keca. “We’ll have our guys ready to go and hopefully we can get some points. In order to get noticed here in Fort McMurray you have to play well on the road because that’s where a lot of the supposed scouts are so this will be an opportunity for some of our guys who want that exposure at the NCAA level to showcase themselves.”
The Oil Barons were shutout for the second game of the season the first was the season opener against Spruce Grove on Sep. 11, at the Casman Centre.
Article courtesy of mymcmurray.com.
Photographer: Dan Lines